


Sanctuary: Empire Day

by B_Radley



Series: Rise and Fight Again [22]
Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Loss, Love, Memory, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-27
Updated: 2017-08-27
Packaged: 2018-09-06 14:21:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8755939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/B_Radley/pseuds/B_Radley
Summary: In remembrance of a time, shortly before the fall of the Republic; when a certain day meant something different for a Galaxy.
A day is marked when one freed herself, with a little help from her friends.
But at a cost. A cost remembered.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [If So Be It Yield](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8486929) by [B_Radley](https://archiveofourown.org/users/B_Radley/pseuds/B_Radley). 
  * Inspired by [That Love Costs All We Are](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8527993) by [Merfilly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly). 



> UPDATE: Retooled this for some canon timeline misinterpretations on my part.
> 
> References Merfilly's wonderful missing scene from the previous story in this arc.
> 
> Author's Note: Some canon reconciliation going on here, from the Ahsoka novel and my story Three Pirates and a Lightsaber.

**Empire Day**   
**CSF Draq'stone**   
**Hyperspace**

A muffled snort brings Bryne Covenant to wakefulness. He looks out of the port and sees the chaos of hyperspace. He smiles as he looks down at the source of the snort. A young Togruta, her head pillowed on his chest. He rolls his eyes as he figures out the true source. As said huntress rubs her nose briskly on his skin; then stills; settling back on his chest.

He grins as he runs the index and middle fingers of his right hand over the young woman's rear lek. He takes a breath as the end of the lek twines about his wrist. He feels a smile on his skin.

The lips move up his chest and begin to place light kisses on the skin. "Hey," says the voice against his sternum. He jumps as the lips find a particularly sensitive are. Apparently the owner of the lips has made a note as she draws the area into her mouth.

"Hey, yourself," he manages to gasp out. 

"You trying to get me going again, Bait?"

"Maybe. Is it working?"

"Maybe. Perhaps it’s time for some physical therapy on that left hand. Dr. Heg said you would need it."

"Oh, please bring a short, furry Drall into my head at this moment. What do you have in mind, Runt?"

"We need to make sure that the other fingers work on the hand," Ahsoka Tano says with a Smirk against his chest.

_Apparently, they work just fine_ , he thinks, as her cries punctuate the ship's early morning.

~=~=~=~=~=

As they lay against one another in stillness again, Covenant takes a look at them. Finally falling asleep last night is a dim memory of touches and tastes, of smooth orange skin and sounds.

His eyes widen as he looks at her. Her top, the beautiful off-the-shoulder wrap is pooled around her waist. Her matching skirt, a long diaphanous garment is hiked up around her hips. Her underwear hangs from an orange ankle.

He looks down at himself. _Not much better_ , he thinks ruefully. His dress shirt is open. A close examination shows that no buttons survived the huntress' onslaught. His own dress trousers are pooled around his own ankles.

His shorts seem to be split in half.

_Guess we were happy to see each other last night when I got back._

His smiles fades as he thinks about what he had returned from. A midnight meeting of a secret conclave that had determined his fate for the rest of his life. A conclave she had been unable to attend.

He had felt her presence through every second of the meetings.

A conclave that had ultimately allowed him to have this night of lovemaking and seizing the light. A conclave that allows him, for another ten years at least, to continue the direct fight against the New Order. A conclave that had finalized the installation of his newly-found niece, Jamelyn as the Elector-Presumptive of Corellia. An installation that allowed him to stay in the shadows as the Covenant. _As the Protector._

A Protector against a New Order that had taken his family from him. A family that he had contemplated leaving, but the only family he had known for most of his life. As he thinks of that family, he looks at the nightstand. At the one article of adornment that had been carefully laid aside. 

A red and silver headdress with a single polished tooth. A headdress that he had never seen until Dani and Ahsoka had walked out from dressing.

Placed carefully with two symbols of that family in the intensity of falling into each other's light.

He feels an intense gaze, as her chin shifts to rest on his chest. She smiles softly as she sees his gaze. "Dani gave it to me, yesterday. She...." Her voice breaks. She shakes her head. 

He places his fingers on her lips. "Shh, _cyar'ika_. Later."

He allows her to collect herself. "So tell me about those sabers. When did you make them? I've only seen you with the rescues, except," he says with a rueful grin, "when you were kicking my ass in that spar by the lake on Takodana."

She smiles. "I made them about a year after the slaughter. Just collected bits and pieces. Reclaimed two crystals from an some darksider." 

His eyes widen. "How come you haven't been carrying them all along?"

Ahsoka looks down. "Because something happened that made me rethink the whole Fulcrum stuff." She smiles ruefully. "Only a few months after I started."

His gaze pins her. "You went through that just before we found each other."

She smiles crookedly. "Yeah, I did. Didn't think Bail and Nola trusted me." She grows sober. "Back then, it was a little different. I was on my own, trying to establish a network. Plus," she looks at him archly, "apparently working with a bunch of Mandos and clones with consciences." 

She touches his face as his eyes track downward. "Including unknowingly working with a beautiful warrior and her handsome ex-Jedi husband. A beautiful warrior who apparently saved my hunt-brother. Plus a broken-down clone commando with a major brain injury." 

He looks into her eyes as they soften. "An ex-Jedi, who I would gladly have given anything for him not to have faced that loss."

Covenant kisses the end of her nose. He shakes the emotions away. "So what happened?"

"That's the thing. I woke up one morning on my ship, realizing that I didn't remember anything for several days." His eyes look into hers. "I checked the computer logs and realized they had been wiped for about a week. I remember waiting to meet a contact about some possible Jedi sightings.

"I sent an emergency code to Bail that I was going deep. I put my lightsabers in a cave on Shili and went on a several months tour of of all the Outer Rim shitholes I could find. Blew up the ship and walked away."

She grins. "I even persuaded a cranky _Akul_ to keep undesirables away from the sabers for a couple of months until I had a better place for them."

His grin matches hers. "Let me guess. He was a young male that you bent to your will."

"I don't know. He had gray fur," she says, running her fingers through his own iron-hued hair.

"Are you implying that you can bend me to your will, Runt?"

"Nope. I would never."

He grows silent as she sobers. "I was so afraid that I had compromised everything that Bail was building," she continues. "Whatever happened, the only resonance I got in the Force was of the tremendous loss I felt after the Jedi died. Feelings that I had suppressed with some success throughout that first year of being in hiding."

"Don't know if I was thinking straight or not. That's when I posted the ad on the Darknet for lightsaber collectors. Figured I needed lightsabers, but some that couldn't be traced to me. Plus I could save some Jedi legacies. That's where Lassa found me." She closes her eyes. "That is when Lassa told me that you were dead."

He starts to say something. She stills his lips with her own. "I know, Bait. She was protecting you. It wasn't her secret to tell."

"Just like yours wasn't Rex's a couple of years later, when he and I ran into each other on Takodana."

"He wouldn't answer me when I asked about you. I put it down to grief." She sees the look of pain cross his features. "He’s the one, besides Maz and Dani who got me to take my head out of my ass and set me off of my course as a bartender and bouncer."

"If I ever see him again, it’ll be one more thing that I owe him." She grins. "As great as you are as a cook; neither one of us seems to be cut out for a career in the food service industry."

"You know it, Runt."

He sobers. "I don't know where he went, Runt."

"I figure he’s earned his rest, Jame," she says. "Someday, we may need him."

"So why start using your own, now?" he asks. 

She smiles drily. "Haven't only just started, Bait. Mr. Center-of-the-Universe has only seen me using the rescues on missions in and around the Core....."

She gasps at a light sensation between her legs. He looks innocently at her as the sensation starts to build. "You use your little bit of Force sense for that? Really?"

"Don't seem to see anyone stopping me," he says. 

The sensation stops. The look that she gives him promises retribution. "So what did you do with the rescues?" he asks, changing the subject again.

"Left them with Maz, last time we were there. I have a sneaking suspicion that I know the owner of the green blade. Not the one I was using when you blundered back into my life. I dismantled that one and separated the components when I thought it had been compromised. It was really the only one that I had rescued, that I got a sensation from, other than the orange one I found. I get a sensation from it that tells me it had something to do with my missing week. Other than an intuition that I was with someone who kept me safe."

"Do you think that it could be the Empire? Planting something in your mind?"

"No. I’ve meditated on it since it happened. I can't find anything that suggests that."

She smiles. "Don't know if that’s what caused Bail and Nola to be leery of me when we expanded a bit and gave me her as a contact other than him. Never really explained to him why I went off of the grid. Guess he did trust my judgement. The system worked. Plus I made some good solid contacts that have paid dividends while I was off."

They both sit up as they feel a powerful warmth through their centers. The source of the warmth walks through the door of the cabin. Dani Faygan smirks at their deshabille. "Looks like those feelings I was having through the resonance are the result of this. Wish I could've joined in, but I figured last night was special.” She smiles ruefully. “I had a good bit of catching up with my baby foster-sister.” 

Ahsoka sits up. "Thanks, Dani. I’m sure that I or the boy, here, will make it up to you." She matches the smile. “If you and Nola only talked.”

Dani throws off her robe. "Well, we have to get cleaned up. We have a thing to go to as soon as we come out of hyperspace."

Ahsoka can feel both she and Covenant's heart rate increase as they stare at the Zeltron. "A thing?"

"Yep. A celebration."

Ahsoka's eyes flash. "Are you out of your minds? I am _not_ going to a goddamned Empire Day celebration."

"Who said anything about Empire Day, sweetie?" Dani says. "The day existed thousands of years before that."

She smiles and holds her hand out. "Come on. Let's get clean."

Ahsoka stands and pulls the rest of her clothes off. She takes the Zeltron's hand. They both turn and look at Covenant, lying on the bed with a forlorn look on his face. "Come on, sad-sack," the Togruta says, "There's room enough for a Corellian in there."

Speed records are broken and no Corellians are injured further in the operation.

~=~=~=~=~=

Ahsoka, Covenant, and Dani walk into the lounge together. Dani starts as she sees the other person at the end of the table, standing next to two men. Both Ahsoka and Bryne feel her tense and see her left hand slide to her back.

He sees Ahsoka take hold of the hand. He puts his hand on Dani's shoulder.

Lassa Rhayme looks at Dani. The pirate's bronze eyes flash fire. Her own hand crabs toward her waist.

To a non-existent blaster that is usually in a cross-draw rig. She covers the move by running her hand through her lavender hair. 

Covenant and Ahsoka look at each other and roll their eyes. "You two can keep from killing each other, right?" he asks.

"We have in the past, bud," Lassa says. 

Covenant looks at Ahsoka. "You get to sit between them. I already have broken up a knife fight."

"Marvelous." Ahsoka looks at him. "So what are we celebrating, ie?" 

"You'll see, cyar'ika."

The huntress smiles as the last three members of the party walk in. Nola Vorserrie and Draq' Bel Iblis walk in with a tall, unfamiliar male. They are, as are all of them, casually dressed.

Nola walks up to the other four. She pulls each of them into a hug. She holds Covenant a moment longer. "I am glad that you are still with us, Hero," she says.

"Hard to kill, Last Word."

Ahsoka's eyebrow markings rise as she hears the exchange. Nola smiles at her. "Long story." She motions to the new arrival. Ahsoka smiles as she sees the resemblance. "Sis, this is my father, Polden Vorserrie. He’s the reason we’re here."

She shakes his proffered hand. "No, actually she is the reason we're here. I just spring for this shindig. What do I call you, dear?"

Ahsoka looks at Nola. "You can call her Ahsoka, Dad. You just have to forget you ever met her."

"That would be very hard to do, No-No. Beautiful women seem to stick in my mind."

Draq' Bel Iblis snickers. The huntress looks at him, her eyes envisioning teeth being removed. "Don't mind him, dear." Pold says, "he's always been an asshole."

"Found that out early on, Mr. Vorserrie."

"Please, dear. Call me Pold. People who have fought with and for my daughter get to."

They turn to the table. Ahsoka's eyes widen. There are six extra seats at the table.

Six seats with no plates, but small shot glasses in front of them.

Three of which are turned down. 

She turns away as server droids bring plates of food to the seven present.

~=~=~=~=~=

Pold Vorserrie waits until the server droids leave. He looks at Draq'. Draq' goes to a cabinet and unlocks it. He pulls a large, old stoneware bottle—much larger than a standard whisky bottle, or even a liter—from the furniture. He walks around the table. He carefully fills the upright glasses, including those at the vacant chairs. He looks apologetically at Ahsoka. She holds up her caf cup and smiles at him. "I'm okay, Dragon," she says. 

Pold stands. He looks at his daughter. The look between them overwhelms Ahsoka with its power. 

It makes her seek the memories that she has never found. Of her own father. She shakes her head. She listens.

"I am glad to welcome treasured friends here, as we do every year for the last two." He stops and gathers himself. "We all know that time was the first year that we knew that Bryne was alive and able to attend."

"We don't mark the day that the Empire rose. The day that marked the deaths of beloved family members and friends." He looks at Draq', Dani, and Bryne. "The day that marked the loss of others. Others who we don't know the status of."

"Ahsoka, we welcome you here. We know what you meant to some of those who are missing or no longer with us." She smiles at him, dipping her head. "You have probably heard parts of this story. About how Bryne, known by another name and several of his friends, lovers, and fellow Jedi, stood up and refused to let my daughter be abandoned. With help from family," he nods at Dani, "and a dear friend." Draq' places his hand on Pold's shoulder and sits.

He finishes. "Six years ago, all of these friends we remember were still with us. When we came up with this idea, we decided to celebrate the last normal instance of this date. One year before the galaxy and some of these friends left us." He looks at Dani. "Friends and family.

“It was a few months after that last instance that my daughter was taken and then restored to us. He raises his glass. "To Nola."

They take a sip. The aged Tevraki whiskey, a favorite of the pirate sitting at the table, is like smooth fire.

Nola speaks. "I will always remember you. You allowed me to find the courage to live. Along with Captain Tone, of the GAR, who’s represented here for all of his brothers." She pauses as the tears roll down her face. "I Remember all fifteen of their names every day of my life. Even when I was wounded and in a coma. I named them."

Dani speaks next. "Jedi Master Shaak Ti. Beloved mother-of-the-hunt and teacher." Her eyes darken with emotion. "My heart-bond." Draq' takes her hand in his.

Lassa reaches over and gently touches Dani's hand. The Zeltron smiles at her. Ahsoka and Bryne look at one another; their eyes wide. They smile. 

The Pantoran speaks. "Asajj Ventress. Child of darkness. One who fought against several of those here. Who fought fiercely and to the death." Ahsoka takes Lassa's free hand in hers. "Who found her way back to the light at the end."

As they take another sip, Covenant speaks "For those that we don't know their fates." He smiles wistfully. "My brother. Drop. A man as responsible for who I am as my Master. I can only hope that he is not 'marching far away.' That he is with his beloved, Elle Jaquindo." Ahsoka nods to him. "My fellow Padawan. My sister." He closes his eyes. "I haven't felt her in the Force since that day, but I always hope."

Ahsoka sees him choke. For once he is at a loss for words.

Ahsoka looks at Pold with raised eyebrow markings. He smiles and nods. "Gungi. My hunt-brother's Padawan learner." She smiles, a soft look of fondness on her face. "A young warrior growing in his strength and craft."

She looks down, her eyes filling. Covenant finishes for her. "I sent him away when the Jedi fell. I took his 'saber and told him to go live. To never touch the Force again." He shakes his head and drinks.

Pold picks up the bottle. "The bottle is empty. When Nola started this little party two years ago, we said we would only commemorate this as long as the bottle would last." He turns to Draq'.

He picks up the glasses of the missing and distributes the remaining liquor among those gathered. He moves one of the glasses to Ahsoka, with a tiny bit left.

"We’ll always remember this day and those who’ve gone before," the Dragon says.  
"But now it’s time for the living. I raise my glass to you." He looks at Ahsoka, his eyes full of love. "To those who still fight."

_To those who still fight._

~=~=~=~=~=

Ahsoka stands at the airlock, as she prepares to board _Opportunity_. "As always, Runt. I wish that you don't have to go. I'd sacrifice another appendage if I could keep you here," Covenant says. 

"I like you with all of your appendages, Bait," she says with a smile, "but I have to go. I still have the idiots to deal with. Lassa may have some insight on who swindled them."

"I know I can't tell you to be careful," he says. He brings his injured hand to her cheek, rubbing his thumb over the wing marking there. She Smirks. "No more than I can tell you, Jame."

He looks into her eyes. Green meeting blue. "Ahsoka, I know that our lives; what we do; may not allow us to have a 'happily-ever-after," he says as both of them close their eyes and touch foreheads, "but these moments keep me going."

"I know, _ie'ar_ ," she says. "We were both taught at an early age, to live in and for the moment." She smiles. "It may be the most valuable lesson from our past for us, right now."

She pulls him to her, claiming his lips with hers. Her hands pull him closer as his move to her back under the rear lek.

A voice clears behind her. They break apart reluctantly. "Wish I could give you more time, loves," Lassa Rhayme says, "but we have a schedule we have to make, Quartermaster."

Ahsoka nods. "One more second, Captain." She unzips her top, bringing a chain from between her breasts. She Smirks as his eyes are drawn. She gasps as his hand reaches in and touches her. She catches her breath when it finally slides out. "Here. I kept something for you." She pulls an object from the chain.

His eyes widen. She takes the object and his right hand. She slides the _beskar_ ring onto his uninjured right ring finger. A ring forged by a powerful young warrior in love. "I found it on your brother-in-law's body. I cleaned it up for you until you could wear it again."

He closes her hand in his. He looks up. "Maybe it's time for me to move past this. To leave the past behind."

She shakes her head firmly. "No. She is a part of you, Jame Blackthorn. I could no more ask you to put her behind you than you could ask me to put aside Anakin. Or Obi-wan. Or Plo." The pain flows to her face. "Or Barriss."

"Our pasts make us what we are. They’re what we have to hold on to, as well as the present. They’re what we base whatever tiny future we may have.

"Hold on to J'oh. To Shak. Just as I hold on to all our missing and those who march far away." She inclines her head. "May the Force be With You, my hunt-brother."

"And with you, my hunt-sister," he says

She kisses him. They never have to say the other words.

It is his turn to hear the words echo in his ears as she turns to leave.


End file.
